Developing responses to peer-abuse: learning from the MSU local site support project

Dr Carlene Firmin MBE, University of Bedfordshire Sarah Wright, London Borough of Hackney MSU Partnership

• Partnership between UoB, Imkaan and Girls against Gangs project

• Funded by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Trust for London and Samworth Foundation

• Delivered in-depth support to develop practice in 11 local sites over 2.5 years in addition to internship programme for young people and policy engagement

• Site support comprised two stages:

1. Audit of local practice – 6-9 months
2. Development and delivery of an action plan – 16 months Structure of site work

National Expert Advisory Panel and Government advisory groups

Pan-London Steering Group

MSU London Sites NL Cluster (Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington) Croydon, Greenwich, Lambeth

MSU National Sites Sheffield Buckinghamshire

Site training, strategic advice and assistance – 43 local authorities

1. Holistic nature of peer-on-peer abuse

- Harmful Sexual Behaviour
- Domestic Abuse / Teenage relationship abuse
- Bullying
- Child Sexual Exploitation
- Gang-associated violence
- Serious Youth Violence

Physical, sexual, emotional and financial abuse, and coercive control, exercised within young people’s relationships 2) Contextual dynamics of peer-on-peer abuse

- Robbery and street based victimisation CSE in parks, shopping centres, disused garages etc.

- Bullying Corridor culture Peer recruitment

- Peer association to intimate partner violence Peer group sexual offending

- Domestic abuse Siblings Neglect Learning from across sites

- Majority of responses to peer-on-peer abuse are strategically positioned to engage with individual young people and their families.

- There are practical, conceptual and strategic barriers to addressing the contextual dynamics of peer-on-peer abuse.

- Within individual sites there are examples of individual services or practitioners who are developing a contextual response to peer-on-peer abuse.

- Delivery focused on capturing, scaling-up and amplifying evidence of contextual practice including:

  - Developing contextual harmful sexual behaviour meetings
  - Working with fair access panels to identify the use of managed moves in response to peer-on-peer abuse
  - Developing contextual and holistic problem profiles Contextual responses– examples identified during audits

Peer Group Mapping, assessment and intervention

- Social workers and youth offending workers identified links between their individual cases
- Met to map and refined assessment
- Designed complimentary interventions

Protecting vulnerable homes

- Home identified where peer-on-peer abuse occurring
- Lived in by mother with physical and learning disability
- Lighting and CCTV improved
- Engagement with schools officer
- Peer group engaged through youth service and policing
- Home no longer used for abuse

Reclaiming ‘vulnerable’ contexts

- Data used to identify environments where young people are being groomed i.e. shopping centre

- Specialist workers, social workers and police visit those environments on a regular basis

- Young people expect to see them there and begin to talk to them

- Slowly this becomes a space where exploitation can’t occur Extending Child Concepts of Child Protection (1)

- Harm caused by the parent/carer

OR

- Capacity of parents to safeguard young people from significant harm

- Processes in place to respond – S.17 (Child in Need), S.47 (Child Protection)

- Case conferencing and child protection plan

- Legal removal of the child or placement on voluntary agreement Transfer (1) – Capacity to Safeguard

Who’s capacity in which space?

AND

Which space is impacting which service’s capacity? Extending Child Concepts of Child Protection (2) Genograms

Genogram Symbols

- Male
- Female
- Gender unknown
- Pet
- Adopted child
- Foster child
- Pregnancy
- Miscarriage
- Abortion
- Death
- Twins
- Identical twins Transfer (2) – Genos to Peers Associations and Co-Case Management Peer group information capture form

Workshop to identify current use:

- For early intervention
- For assessments
- To task interventions into contexts

Capture form used to aid social care and youth justice assessment

- Nature of peer relationships (protective or presenting risk)
- Role within the group
- Open to social care or youth justice Aspirational Profiling

Individuals

Schools and other education provision

Networks and groups

Families

Public spaces Contextual safeguarding (Firmin et al 2016):

- Seeks to prevent, identify, assess and intervene with the social conditions of abuse
- Incorporate extra-familial contexts into traditional child protection and safeguarding frameworks
- Develop partnerships with sectors/individuals who are responsible for the nature of extra-familial contexts
- Monitor outcomes of success in relation to contextual, as well as individual, change Implications for local practice – a view from Hackney For more information and resources visit our website www.beds.ac.uk/ic carlene.firmin@beds.ac.uk @uniofbedscse